I wonder how many other non-New Yorkers in the baby boomer generation first heard Ezio Pinza’smarvelous voice singing in the movie South Pacific with Mary Martin? Of course, he sang with the Met for 22 seasons, but he retired in 1948. Why, I wasn’t even a glimmer in my parents’ eyes in 1948.

A bronze Roman god come to life
Ezio the magnificent
Don Juan of the Metropolitan
One of the fourteen most glamourous men in in the world